Rates on the most popular types of mortgages retreated to new record lows, According to HSH.com’s Weekly Mortgage Rates Radar, mortgage rates retreated to new record lows once again this week.

The average rate for conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell by 6 basis points (0.06 percent) to 3.91 percent. Conforming 5/1 hybrid ARM rates decreased by 5 basis points, closing the Wednesday-to-Tuesday wraparound weekly survey at an average of 2.85 percent.

“A deepening economic slump overseas is forcing mortgage rates downward, as investors once again seek a haven for their money in the relative safety of U.S.-backed debt,” said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com.

A worsening financial and political crisis in Greece has led to speculation that the country might exit from the eurozone. This would destabilize the currency and risk tipping Spain and Italy into deeper crises of their own.

“A troubled world is good for U.S. homebuyers and homeowners, at least for now,” added Gumbinger. “However, difficulties overseas are likely to slow our already muted pace of growth this summer, making it even harder to keep our own recovery moving forward. Ultimately, that benefits no one.”

Thinking about buying new?

If you’re thinking about buying a new home, loan officer Dan Green said the time to act is now. “Buyers of new construction are on the clock,” said Green. “With builder confidence rising and new home sales expected to pop, the best time to buy a new home this year may be right this very minute.”

With builder confidence at a five-year high and foot traffic at the highest level it has been at since 2007, the demand for new construction is returning—positive signs for both the employment and housing sectors.

But as HSH.com contributing writer Bendix Anderson wrote, new homes are hard to find.

“If you’re in the market for a new home, be prepared to compete with other homebuyers over the few new listings left on the market, especially if you’re shopping for a new home that was recently finished,” wrote Anderson.

Mortgage rates have never been lower

Whether you’re in the market for a new or “used” home, or if you’re looking to refinance your existing home, mortgage rates have never been lower. And even though lending conditions remain strict, as Green points out, your mortgage options are plentiful, especially if you’re looking for a mortgage with a low down payment.

Be sure to view today’s mortgage rates and begin shopping around before it’s too late.

But in an unusual twist, foreclosure prices are now rising in some markets while the price of non-distressed real estate falls.

Increasing sales of real estate owned by banks–commonly known as REOs–to investors recently have caused foreclosure prices to tick up. Meanwhile, home values for non-distressed real estate has continued to decline in recent months.

According to the Clear Capital Home Data Index Market Report, from April 2011 to April 2012, sales prices for REO sales rose 5.5 percent, while prices for non-distressed sales dropped 2.9 percent.

Could the increase in REO sales prices bode well for the general housing market in the coming year?

“If REO prices continue to go up, it will stabilize the lower end of the national housing market, which is a necessary first step for improvement in the market overall,” says Rick Sharga, executive vice president of Carrington Mortgage Holdings in Santa Ana, Calif. “But REO prices are only one factor that impact[s] the real estate market.”

Rising sales, rising prices

Sharga says that an increase in the overall level of new-home sales typically will drive prices up all over the market. However, he says that the limited availability of financing for jumbo loans is hurting the high end of the housing market, so that most home purchases are in the low to mid-price range.

Read: 4 factors in the rent vs. buy decision

According to Clear Capital’s report, “Going forward, the sensitive balance between the REO supply and demand will help determine how market prices react to shifts in REO saturation. If REO-to-rental investment activity continues or increases, it is likely to provide the lift needed to support price increases, especially as we enter the summer buying season.”

Sharga says that he believes REO prices have risen because of a classic supply-and-demand scenario, rather than a wave of investor purchases.

“What’s causing price increases is the lack of foreclosure inventory,” says Sharga. “Most investors who want to buy foreclosures in bulk have been unable to do so.”

Read: Buying a foreclosure? It’s more than just cheap real estate

Another reason the average price of foreclosures may be rising is that the foreclosures on the market now tend to be more expensive homes, since lower-priced homes fell into foreclosure earlier in the housing downturn, Sharga says. REO prices are higher as well because many servicers are making repairs in order to improve their return on investment.

Regional REO impact

Some areas that have been hardest hit by foreclosures have seen price increases in their overall market because of increased REO sales. For example, in Phoenix, values rose 3.8 percent over the past quarter. Phoenix has been No. 1 or No. 2 among the top 15 performing markets since February, according to Clear Capital.

The REO portion of sales rose to 27.9 percent of the national market in March 2012, with every region of the country showing an increase compared to November 2011, according to Clear Capital. In the Midwest, 37.1 percent of all sales in March were REOs. Such transactions made up 33.3 percent of sales in the West, followed by 25.3 percent in the South and 10.2 percent in the Northeast.

“The states with the highest foreclosure rates are seeing the highest REO sales now, but you can’t necessarily assume that REO prices and market home prices will rise in those areas,” says Sharga. “You have to look at local market economics, too, such as job growth.”

Investors vs. owner-occupants

Sharga says that many available REO properties do not appeal to owner-occupants because of the level of work required to make them livable. Investors who buy multiple properties often have the ability to hire contractors for several projects at one time.

“We’re in a unique time in the market with a year-over-year decline in homeownership and demand for rental properties,” says Sharga. “This is an opportunity to remove distressed properties from the market and to stabilize rising rent prices. This will allow supply and demand for the rest of the housing market to work itself out over the next two to three years.”

Sharga also says that it’s better for the market to have an investor-owned rental property than an abandoned home.

“There are 140 million single-family homes in the country and about 800,000 REOs, so even if all of them were purchased by investors and converted to rental properties, it would be a fraction of 1 percent of the housing inventory,” says Sharga.

He says all the trends, including the rise in REO prices, suggest that the housing market has bottomed out.

“People who have been waiting for an opportunity to buy may want to get serious now,” says Sharga.

For now, we should just sit back and enjoy the ride.

HSH.com’s broad-market mortgage tracker–our weekly Fixed-Rate Mortgage Indicator (FRMI)–found that the overall average rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages eased by three basis points (0.03 percent) for the week, and at 4.12 percent, now stands at a new record low.

The FRMI’s 15-year companion shed four basis points (0.04 percent), slipping to a new record low of 3.35 percent.

Important to homebuyers and low-equity-stake refinancers, already-low FHA-backed 30-year mortgages fell by another two basis points to 3.77 percent, while the overall average rate for 5/1 Hybrid ARMs was down three basis points (0.03 percent), and finished at 2.94 percent for the survey period.

With mortgage rates down, perhaps homebuying will again pick up. The warm winter months seem to have “advanced” some sales from this spring, but fresh lows for mortgage rates are just the thing to get homebuyers to come back into the market.

Can we count on continued Fed support?

The Federal Reserve is obviously following the changes in the economy very closely, since their present program of support comes to a close in about six weeks. One of the keys to deciding whether or not to continue support is whether or not the work they’ve already done is fostering more inflation than they expect. Fed Chairman Bernanke has noted that he believed that the effect of higher energy costs will prove transient, and the Fed will likely be encouraged by the most recent data on prices.

Mortgages: We’re in a sweet spot

Low rates, moderating inflation and economic news suggests we will have a chance to improve on the 2.2 percent rise in GDP for the first quarter of 2012. While things could of course be better, we are in a relative sweet spot for mortgages; more growth or more inflation would cause them to rise to a degree.

That said, without more growth, it will remain hard for many people–even those with jobs–to take full advantage of them, be it by buying a home or refinancing one. It’s not quite a Catch-22; slightly stronger growth and an improving labor market would probably only push us up from record lows to merely unbelievable levels, so any “damage” from such a rise would be minor at best.

This week brings a busier calendar in terms of economic data. It seems to us that modest improvement will be the general tone all around, and mortgage rates hold steady for the week.

To learn more, be sure to read the latest issue of HSH.com’s Market Trends newsletter in its entirety. Sign up today and receive the newsletter in your inbox Friday night.

According to the White House, since the details of HARP 2.0 were announced last fall, refinance applications have increased 50 percent. “Much of this increase is driven by a spike in HARP participation,” said the White House in a release. “Roughly one in three borrowers applying for refinancing today is applying for a loan through HARP, up from less than one in ten a year ago.”

Calling on Congress

According to this morning’s release, the president’s call to Congress will focus on three main areas:

1. Remove the remaining barriers that borrowers with GSE loans continue to face
2. Provide straightforward refinancing opportunities to non-GSE borrowers
3. Provide homeowners with a incentive to rebuild their equity

Choosing to rebuild equity

While many of you have probably already heard of potential efforts or discussions surrounding numbers one and two, number three might sound like a new one. The White House is proposing legislation that would essentially cover about $3,000 worth of closing costs if refinance borrowers choose to take the benefit of a reduced rate and “apply that savings to rebuilding equity in their homes.”

According to the White House, here’s how it will work:

A borrower has a 5.5 percent $216,000 30-year mortgage originated in early 2007. The loan now has an outstanding balance of $200,000, but the house is worth $167,000 (a loan-to-value ratio of 120%). The monthly payment on this mortgage is $1,228. While this homeowner is responsibly paying her monthly mortgage, she is locked out of refinancing. By refinancing into a 4.0 percent 20-year mortgage loan, this borrower keeps her monthly payments effectively the same. After five years her mortgage balance would decline to $165,000, bringing the homeowner above water.

How to finance your refinance

The reality is that much of what the president is proposing is exactly that, a proposal. Gaining bipartisan Congressional approval for most or all of what’s being referred to as the president’s “To Do List” will be extremely challenging, especially in an election year.

Since there is no federal plan in place (at the moment) to cover your refinance closing costs, we come back to the question we’ve been asked a thousand times: “What’s the best way to finance my refinance–is it better to pay closing costs out of pocket, finance them into the loan amount, or trade them for a higher interest rate?”

The truth is, there’s no one right answer since each has their own benefits and costs associated with it. But HSH.com has developed a refinance calculator that will help you determine which finance option is best for you.

The TriRefi refinance calculator allows you to run the numbers for a Traditional Refinance, a Low-Cash-Out Refinance and a No-Cash-Out Refinance. Fill in the information once and instantly compare the costs and savings.

Just this week, CBS MoneyWatch Editor-at-Large Jill Schlesinger was on CBS 3 News in Philadelphia, urging consumers to utilize the TriRefi calculator. Personal finance journalist Vera Gibbons wrote about the calculator in a recent edition of Real Simple magazine, saying “If you’re still not sure which type of refi to choose, crunch the numbers at hsh.com/refinance-calculator to see a side-by-side comparison.”

The “SmartMarket Report: New and Remodeled Green Homes: Transforming the Residential Market” shows that green construction expanded from $6 billion in 2005 to $17 billion in 2011. This is not only a dramatic increase in terms of dollars, but it’s particularly significant in terms of overall market penetration. In 2006, green construction represented just 2 percent of new residential building. By 2011, green construction accounted for 17 percent of the market.

Read: Go green when renovating: Choose deconstruction over demolition

Green construction

The shift to green construction is a positive note for several reasons:

1. There is a need to preserve construction jobs. If building green homes means more jobs, that’s good for the industry and good for the economy in general.
2. Green construction means less energy usage and that benefits all power users. The need for new power plants is not based on typical daily use. Instead, the system is designed so that everyone will have power even at the moment of greatest usage, typically sometime in the summer when every air-conditioner is turned up. The construction of more green homes is really a way to reduce the need for more power plants and their use of coal, natural gas and nuclear fuel.

Who else in housing is going green?

For its part, the FHA has long had a mortgage program to encourage more green housing. The FHA’s energy-efficient mortgage–or EEM–allows borrowers to increase their ability to get an FHA loan by enlarging qualification ratios.

With the typical FHA mortgage, a borrower is allowed to have housing costs which are equal to 31 percent of their monthly income. With an energy-efficient mortgage, the FHA allows 33 percent of an individual’s income to be used for housing costs (such as mortgage interest, mortgage principal, property taxes and property insurance).

Also, the FHA allows a larger overall debt for borrowers. Usually as much as 43 percent of an individual’s monthly income can be devoted to housing costs plus recurring monthly expenses such as credit card debt, car loans and student debt. However, with an energy-efficient mortgage, the FHA permits borrowers to have as much is a 45 percent monthly debt load.

With an EEM, the FHA allows higher qualifying ratios because it assumes that the borrower will have lower monthly bills for gas, electric and other utilities. Lower monthly costs–whether in the form of mortgage rates or smaller utility bills–should all be welcomed.

An EEM can also be used to refinance a property provided it’s not a co-op loan or reverse mortgage.

The increase in green construction is something which should be applauded. Indeed, one wonders why all new construction is not green. Energy-efficient homes are good for all because they represent less drag on the power plant system. And given the way energy costs are rising, green construction should help with marketing when it comes time to resell the home.

“Employment gains have flagged over the past couple of months, casting some doubt about the strength of the recovery,” said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com. “There’s little indication of any strengthening of economic growth at the moment, and it appears that investors have shifted some attention from stocks to bonds of late, pushing rates lower.”

In 2011, after a winter growth spurt, the economy faded into the summer and fall. At this point, it is unclear if we have entered a repeat of that pattern.

“Is this a soft patch in an otherwise upward trend, or are we on the kind of path which prompts the Federal Reserve to additional action? It’s too soon yet to know,” said Gumbinger. “At present, no plan has been announced, but Operation Twist–the Fed’s existing program–expires at the end of June. Between now and then, if things show scant improvement, we might set a few more record lows for mortgage rates.”

Refinance talks underway

Months ago, we discussed how important it was for mortgage rates to remain at low levels as HARP 2.0 was just about to get underway. This week, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan addressed the Senate Banking Committee saying much of the same. Fearing upward pressure on mortgage rates, administration officials and some democrats have recently urged lawmakers to act on additional refinance efforts, refinance efforts that many have already been dubbed HARP 3.0.

Secretary Donovan addressed two main refinance proposals: a refinance effort led by the FHA and another expansion of the HARP program.

“Under the President’s broad-based refinance proposal, borrowers with standard non-FHA and non-GSE loans would have access to refinancing through a new program operated by the FHA,” Donovan said to the committee. “The refinancing program would be open to all borrowers who are current on their mortgage payments and have standard, non-jumbo loans that are not currently insured by FHA or the GSEs.”

Here’s a quick breakdown of the eligibility criteria (for more information, be sure to read Donovan’s written testimony):

• You must be current on your mortgage for the last six months, having missed only one payment in the six months prior
• You have a minimum FICO score of at least 580
• Your mortgage must fit within the FHA’s conforming loan limits for your area (from $271,050 to $729,750)
• Must be a single-family, owner-occupied home that’s a principal residence

This effort is designed to be streamlined and less expensive, not requiring an appraisal or tax return. “To determine a borrower’s eligibility, a lender need only confirm that the borrower is employed and meets the eligibility criteria outlined above,” said Donovan.

The structure for another refinance plan–proposed by Democratic Senators Bob Menendez (N.J.) and Barbara Boxer (Calif.)–which could eventually evolve into HARP 3.0, is as follows:

• Open up streamline refinancing to all GSE borrowers
• Increase competition between lenders and current servicers to allow borrowers to get the best deal. “The President’s legislative plan would direct the GSEs to require the same streamlined underwriting for new servicers as they do for current servicers, leveling the playing field and unlocking competition between banks for borrowers’ business,” said Donovan. “Specifically, this would eliminate the requirement of any lender to assume representations and warranties that are not required of same servicers. Additionally, the GSEs could not charge any loan level pricing adjustments (LLPAs), post-settlement delivery fees, adverse delivery charges or other similar up-front fees.”
• No more appraisal costs for borrowers

As you can see, the details surrounding what might be HARP 3.0 are quite thin, and there are even more than one legislative proposal floating around.

Vicki Needham of The Hill reported that “Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) also are crafting legislation to remove other barriers and expand refinancing opportunities.”

Will we see HARP 3.0 before this year’s election? I doubt it. I can’t see full Congressional approval.

The downside is that the homes they sell stay on the market longer than those of other agents, according to the study, “Broker beauty and boon: a study of physical attractiveness and its effect on real estate brokers’ income and productivity.” Attractive agents also sell fewer houses and they don’t earn any more income annually than less-attractive agents.

For sellers, having an attractive real estate agent pays off with a higher selling price, although the research doesn’t say how much more money sellers will likely get.

Attracted to luxury

“It’s possible that better-looking people are more trustworthy, and better-looking people are more confident,” says Marina Adshade, an economics professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who teaches a class called “Economics of Sex and Love.”

Women usually don’t make more money than men, Adshade says, although the study, conducted by three business professors, finds that attractive real estate agents can sell luxury homes at higher prices. According to the study, “Results suggest that beauty augments more attractive agents’ wages and that more attractive agents use beauty to supplement classic production-related characteristics such as effort, intelligence and organizational skills.”

In other words, they use their beauty to augment their other abilities.

The researchers controlled for the quality of the house, including characteristics such as home size, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, location, and whether the house had features such as hardwood flooring, brick siding and granite countertops.

What’s likely, says Adshade (who wrote about the study on her blog), is that attractive agents attract better listings, which are normally on the market for longer periods because they sell at higher prices. The homes may take longer to sell because the attractive agents know they don’t have to work too hard to sell homes, and that their good looks will help them make a sale, she says.

Using looks to your advantage

Tampa Bay real estate broker Karyn Anjali Glubis says she uses her good looks to get clients, focusing on high-end homes that sell for $1 million or more. Glubis is 40 and says she looks 10 years younger since losing 37 pounds five years ago.

“I use my sexuality to my advantage,” says Glubis, who estimates that 25 percent of her male clients hit on her when they first meet her.

“I’m showing them homes, and they’re more interested in what I look like,” she says.

Her education and expertise take over after the initial impression, she says, adding that her income has increased fourfold since she lost weight and has gotten in shape.

“I know I make more money because of what I look like,” she says. “I use that to my advantage in more ways than people realize.”

Not always a beauty contest

Diane Saatchi, a New York real estate agent who specializes in luxury homes, says she can see how a wife might allow a husband to flirt with an attractive agent if such flirting persuades the husband to spend more money on a home that the wife really wants. But the Long Island homes that Saatchi sells aren’t typically sold by “knock-out beautiful” agents.

“It’s not a beauty contest by any means,” she says of the top brokers in the Hamptons.

While a woman’s beauty may have its place in the real estate market–with Saatchi and other brokers putting their photos on their business cards and ads for listed homes–a photo of a home is often enough to attract buyers, Saatchi says.

“I think that good looks really help everybody, no matter what it is,” she says.

Following the softer tone of the economy, mortgage rates eased downward last week to again land at new record lows. After a hopeful late winter and early spring, the economic data began to point to a lower trajectory for growth, and that’s where we find ourselves at the moment.

Troubles in overseas economies continue to show, while inflation has leveled for the moment. These ingredients are the recipe for lower interest rates in general, as investors look for places to stash and park cash away from uncertain stock markets. Once you mix in a Federal Reserve still accumulating long-term Treasuries and mortgages, you’ve got everything you need for rock-bottom mortgage rates.

It would be better if more borrowers could take advantage of them, though.

Mortgage rates: The third record-setting week of 2012

HSH.com’s broad-market mortgage tracker–our weekly Fixed-Rate Mortgage Indicator (FRMI)–found that the overall average rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages (conforming, non-conforming and jumbos) eased by two basis points (0.02 percent) for the week ending May 4, and at 4.15 percent, now stands at a new record low, the third record-setting week of 2012.

The FRMI’s 15-year companion also shed two basis points (.02 percent), slipping to a new record low of 3.39 percent.

Important to homebuyers and low-equity-stake refinancers, already-low FHA-backed 30-year mortgages dropped by another single basis point to 3.79 percent, a fresh low-water mark, while the overall average for 5/1 Hybrid ARMs was unchanged, holding at an average 2.97 percent for the survey period, its lowest level ever.

Little change in lending standards

The latest Senior Loan Officer survey of lending conditions from the Federal Reserve was released last week. Since the mortgage market is substantially controlled by the underwriting guidelines of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the HUD’s FHA program, it was unsurprising that there was little change in the standards for obtaining a residential mortgage. Over the past three months, demand for loans was up slightly (record low mortgage rates at times will tend to have that effect).

In a special question, the Fed asked lenders to compare their willingness to make a mortgage to borrowers in 2006 and 2012 using similar FICO and LTV standards. In what has been painfully obvious to even a casual observer of the mortgage market, lenders are much less willing to lend now compared to then. The reasons are widespread, but include trouble getting mortgage insurance for borrowers, the GSEs requiring buybacks on failed loans, unclear regulations, weak home prices and more. To a degree, all of these issues rely on the other to be solved, and given the thorny issues involved, it may be some time before that happens.

That’s a shame, since making it somewhat easier to get a mortgage loan would tend to foster demand, firming home prices. If prices start to rise, losses on failed loans would slow, which might allow some leeway on buybacks. Fewer failing loans would see mortgage insurers in better fiscal straits, allowing them to ease rigid rules. If the market starts to function better all around, regulators might be less tempted to make drastic changes, and new regulations might come sooner rather than later, easing the anxiety of over-regulation which has hung over the market for several years now.

Looking forward

A relatively thin set of new data coming out this week probably won’t shine much new light on the economic situation. The stock market had a rough week of it last week, and some additional money was plowed into Treasuries, driving rates down. That probably won’t occur to the same degree this week, and we might even see a little reversal when the dust settles. This leaves us to believe that mortgage rates will move a couple basis points up off of record lows but the time Friday rolls around.

For a longer-range outlook for mortgage rates and the economy, one which will take you up until late June, have a look at our new Two-Month Forecast.

The good news is that March’s figure was revised upward, from 120,000 to 154,000. From December to February, the monthly job’s numbers have averaged 252,000 new jobs each month. Economists believe that the unseasonably warm winter stole some hiring from March and April.

What the jobs numbers mean for mortgage rates

These days, any weak economic report gives mortgage rates an excuse not to rise, but not necessarily an excuse to continue falling.

“Mortgage rates are again at record lows, but today’s employment report adds no additional downward pressure to them,” says Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com. “Unless the economic news begins to substantially improve, we expect mortgage rates will remain around at or just slightly above record lows for the foreseeable future.”

Will the Fed react?

Besides the economy acting as a weight around mortgage rates who love to rise faster than they fall, the Fed is also expected to have a continued impact on the trajectory of mortgage rates.

Currently, the Fed’s Operation Twist program (essentially, the Fed is purchasing more longer-term securities in an attempt to keep downward pressure on long-term interest rates, such as mortgage rates) is slated to expire at the end of June. It just so happens that the Fed’s next FOMC meeting is scheduled for June 19 and 20.

In HSH.com’s latest Two-month forecast for mortgage rates, Gumbinger said he expects the Fed to act if things don’t start to pick up:

At the moment (and of course subject to change) we think that the Fed is likely to extend the expiration date for Operation Twist for perhaps another six months. This would achieve several goals: first, it would signal that although the economy is still troubled, it is not expected to worsen and is even improving slowly in a number of ways; two, that the Fed is carefully watching and evaluating the needs of the economy, and reserves the right to move as needed, and three, that there will be additional time for the housing market to heal before it needs to worry about rising interest rates. Low rates are important to the success not only purchases, but also to the success of HARP 2.0, too.

For all you potential homebuyers and refinancers out there, today’s job report, while another reality check to all of us that economic productivity is still a long way off, is another sign that historically-low mortgage rates are there for the taking.

Mortgage insurance is paid by you, the borrower, in one of several ways, such as a monthly payment, an upfront premium or by paying a higher-than-market interest rate on the loan.

Mortgage lenders require PMI on any mortgage loan made with a down payment of less than 20 percent. If you plan to refinance and have less than 20 percent equity in your home, you will also be required to pay mortgage insurance.

Mortgage insurance and FHA loans

If your mortgage is a government-insured FHA loan, you’re also required to pay mortgage insurance. FHA borrowers must pay a monthly mortgage insurance premium as part of their mortgage payment, along with an upfront mortgage insurance payment that can be wrapped into your loan balance.

Benefits of mortgage insurance for borrowers

While many homebuyers prefer to avoid paying mortgage insurance because it adds to their housing costs, the shared risk of loss for the lender allows them to approve loans with lower down payments. First-time homebuyers often have difficulty saving enough money for a 20-percent down payment.

For example, 20 percent down on a $200,000 home would be $40,000. But if you have a conventional mortgage with PMI, you can make a down payment on that home of $20,000 or sometimes even as little as $10,000.

Is mortgage insurance tax deductible?

There’s good news and bad news in terms of your mortgage insurance deductibility, explains Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com. “The good news is that you could deduct the mortgage insurance you paid in tax year 2011. The bad news is that the deduction expired at the turn of 2012.”

If you are paying mortgage insurance, this should be reported to you annually by your lender on Form 1098, the same form that is used to provide a statement of the mortgage interest paid during the previous year.

Depending on how you pay your mortgage insurance premiums, you may be able to stop making those payments as you build equity in your home.